There is a need for repairing, maintaining and updating inhabited buildings which may have lead paint, asbestos or similar toxic pollutants on the interior surfaces of walls or ceilings. The needed work may be the installation of water sprinkler systems, electrical fixtures, electrical outlets, plumbing or a myriad of other instances in which a portion of the polluted surface must be removed. The health of the building occupants is the primary concern but there is also a major consideration of the speed with which these operations can be performed to minimize inconvenience and disruption of the normal activity of the building occupants. A further major consideration is the cost to perform these services.
Lead based paint pollution is a major public hazard. The hazard of lead based paint has been recognized and documented by the United States (federal ) government. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued guidelines for dealing with lead-based paint hazard identification and abatement in public housing.
The federal government has also mandated lead abatement in public housing project modernization. Before undertaking such abatement projects, personnel must be properly trained as to the aspects of safety, and procedures must be instituted to minimize lead pollution affecting both the workers and the environment. When removing lead-contaminated structures, measures for controlling debris and lead dust must be instituted. The work area must be enclosed and toxic material disposed of with care. Workers must wear properly fitted respirators. Protective clothing, such as, protective overalls, disposable shoe covers, gloves, hats and goggles must be worn at all times. Care must be taken to effectively dispose of contaminated work clothing, and workers must shower to remove residual lead dust contamination.
All movable furniture, as well as draperies, should be moved out of the work area. If carpeting is to be left in place, it must be covered with two sheets of 6 mil polyethylene sheeting secured to the walls or baseboard with masking tape. Furniture left in the work area must be covered with plastic and sealed with tape. In some instances an entire area of a room is to be sealed off with tape and polyethylene sheeting running from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. All tears in plastic must be immediately repaired. Similar precautions and preparations are required for removal of asbestos and other types of contamination. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that the removal of contamination from existing building structures is no easy task; nor is it inexpensive.
Various solutions to these problems have been suggested in the prior art, but none of these intended solutions are completely satisfactory.
For example, Bain, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,191 disclosed an apparatus for protecting a ceiling work area from dispersal of asbestos fibers. A single support means having an adjustable height has a rectangular rack on its upper end, and the upper edge of an open mouth bag is received on the rectangular rack. The bag has gloves sealed to openings in the back to provide access to the interior of the bag. A sub-atmospheric condition is maintained within the bag. However, the bag is flexible, not rigid, and any relatively-heavy cordless power tool within the flexible bag may cause a tear or break in the bag, thereby polluting the surrounding atmosphere. Besides, the operator stands on a ladder and must continually go up and down the ladder to control a vacuum cleaner as well as pump up a fluid container. This is inconvenient and impractical. Moreover, this apparatus must be disassembled and then reassembled to make a second penetration in the ceiling, and so on during the required job, and there is no means for conveniently moving the apparatus (substantially in its assembled state) to make a series of spaced-apart penetrations in a wall or ceiling.
Additionally, German Patent DE 3004066 disclosed a box which seals to a surface being cleaned. The box is open in the side facing the surface to be cleaned. The opposite side has gloves into which a worker places his or her hands to work on the surface being cleaned. The box is held to the surface by magnetization or by reduced pressure.
To the best of the applicant's knowledge and belief, however, neither of these references has been commercialized (and certainly not to any appreciable extent) for making penetrations in a wall or ceiling.
Other prior art, of which the applicant is aware, are as follows:
Inventor(s)U.S. Pat. No.Letac2,473,033Husted4,067,346Piet et al4,108,509Trexler4,335,712Jacobson4,482,347Fink et al4,505,190Natale4,626,291Lord4,633,899Healey4,682,448Streiter4,765,352Soldatovic4,809,391Jacobson4,820,000Browning6,149,252
Despite the extent of the patented prior art, the present commercial method used by environmental contractors is to build an enclosure out of 6 mil. poly film. The enclosure extends from the ceiling to the floor and encloses the personnel who are removing the contaminated portion in making a penetration or opening in the polluted portion of the ceiling and/or wall. The poly film enclosure also prevents dust and debris from entering into offices, dormitories or other living quarters. This existing method is quite inefficient because of the length of time that it takes to make such an enclosure. Moreover, the plastic or poly film is subject to tearing or cutting and would require immediate repair. To seal the enclosure against the wall, a tape or a like material has to be used; when removed from the wall, the tape leaves destructive marks on the paint or wallpaper.
If the floor is carpeted, the carpet must be covered with plastic and sealed down by tape. Sealing with tape is difficult because the tape does not always effectively seal to the carpet and furthermore, the tape could mar or ruin the carpet. If the tape itself does not stick, then a special spray glue has to be used, adding further to the inconvenience.
Finally, the poly film and the tape become contaminated and must be handled as hazardous materials and brought to a suitable landfill along with the removed material from the wall or ceiling. The disposal process is also expensive.
The prevent inventor, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,457,922 and 5,685,112, disclosed an apparatus and method for removing structural parts of a building (and, in particular, windows and window frames) without contaminating the adjacent areas. This apparatus comprises a containment box (or its equivalent) which has an open side adapted to fit against the window frame from within the interior of the building and to surround the window in an air tight manner, such that the window and/or window frame may be removed from outside of the building.
However, despite these teachings and the widespread extent of the prior art, no one to date (prior to the present applicant) has disclosed a practical pollution containment apparatus to fill a longstanding need for making a series of spaced-apart penetrations in a wall or ceiling, such that the penetrations may be made quickly and conveniently and without a substantial disassembly of the apparatus from one work station to another.